A train ride to understanding…

… something.

Today I went by train. In the morning I went to Stockholm and in the evening I went from Stockholm. And as I sat on the train, waiting for its departure from Stockholm the conductor was having a welcome and information announcement. He said all kinds of funny things and he even sounded funny saying the normal things. For example did he call all passengers “boys” and “girls” – not ladies and gentlemen. And he seemed to have fun with the fact that someone sabotaged the electricity of ropes so that traffic between Gothenburg and Stockholm collapsed. I found a smile on my face while I was listening to him and appreciated his approach to work: if you have to do it, do it in a fun way… I decided for myself to remember this.

But then came through a comment of a nearby sitting “gentleman”. He said that that the conductor must be drunk. A short, dry comment. It made me think that it really would be bad if the conductor was drunk. A little bit later came the second conductor through to check the tickets. She also had fun and she also was very lively in her manners. She joked with me that she would have liked to stumble and fall into my lap when the train rushed into a curve. Then she asked if I understood, if I speak Swedish. She found that I gaped at her in an air of confusion. I was trying to find out, to see or smell if she was drunk, if she was under the influence of alcohol. The man’s comment had gotten through to me.

I replied to her something funny, she checked my passport and ticket and both our lives continued seperately. Sure I am that we and our small talk were entertaining for the people around. But as life continued, I dedicated myself to the German newspaper I had bought.

Only when I got of the train, being home from Stockholm, I started reflecting on what happened, on my reaction… WHy actually do we assume that as soon as someone behaves differently than the norm, that he or she must be under the influence of alcohol? Why did I buy the dry comment of the man on the train and made it my interpretation of a situation?

Because we are bombed from early childhood on with this kind of myth: that alcohol is fun, makes fun, makes you funny and crazy and a bit different than you usually, normally would be.

I remembered how I used to entertain my little brother when we were supposed to sleep by pretending that I was drunk and talking and stumbling through our little room and saying crazy funny things. We were so young. I think my brother wasn’t even able to spell alcohol back then. Neither did we know of alcohol related harm. But we knew and perpetuated it: alcohol is fun.

Later in school and university and football team and in the winter holiday and wherever else we make jokes about alcohol. We make memories of puking special, worth being kept together with memories of a big victory, of a fanatastic view or any other unique experience; we make getting in troubel with the police an adventure story, as if we biked through Sahara or went over water; we all do these things.

Because this is how our culture treats alcohol. Alcohol culture. It is rooted so deeply, I would say in all of us, that we don’t even realize it, or only hardly, that it is inbuilt in our assessment of a situation: of course the conductor is under the influence of alcohol! Why else, on earth, could he be funny and find an interesting way to talk to the passengers and see the positive side of all the stress connected to delay? Why?

For most of our society the answer is alcohol. The answer can only be alcohol. In the very end of my train raid, however, from Stockholm back home, I realized that this is bullshit. Of course it is. But it took me a two hour train ride and some more steps to realize this, to see how indoctrinated we are, I am by alcohol culture.

The way we see alcohol is the way we treat it, That’s why people like Carl Jan say what they say. They don’t, can’t and probably will never understand how indoctrinated and manipulated they are. In Stockholm I was at a meeting. During the break we just played music, randomly. Just a little music. And two people danced. They just started dancing. They were sober. They have been sober and will be. They are idols. Free thinkers!

It took me a train ride to understand the power of a dance and a dry comment.

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